Help With Home Repairs for Low Income Families in New Philadelphia Ohio
Reprint: R1209F The rigor with which a problem is defined is the most important factor in finding a skilful solution. Many organizations, however, are not proficient at articulating their problems and identifying which ones are crucial to their strategies. They may even be trying to solve the incorrect issues—missing opportunities and wasting resources in the process. The primal is to enquire the right questions. The author describes a procedure that his house, InnoCentive, has used to assist clients define and clear business, technical, social, and policy challenges and then present them to an online community of more than than 250,000 solvers. The four-stride process consists of request a series of questions and using the answers to create a problem statement that will arm-twist novel ideas from an array of experts. EnterpriseWorks/VITA, a nonprofit organization, used this process to detect a low-toll, lightweight, and convenient production that expands access to clean drinking water in the developing globe.
"If I were given one hour to relieve the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the trouble and ane minute resolving it," Albert Einstein said.
Those were wise words, just from what I have observed, nearly organizations don't heed them when tackling innovation projects. Indeed, when developing new products, processes, or even businesses, most companies aren't sufficiently rigorous in defining the problems they're attempting to solve and articulating why those problems are important. Without that rigor, organizations miss opportunities, waste resources, and end up pursuing innovation initiatives that aren't aligned with their strategies. How many times have you seen a project go downward i path only to realize in hindsight that it should accept gone down some other? How many times have you seen an innovation program deliver a seemingly breakthrough upshot only to find that it can't be implemented or information technology addresses the wrong trouble? Many organizations need to become ameliorate at request the right questions so that they tackle the right problems.
I offer here a process for defining problems that any organization tin use on its own. My firm, InnoCentive, has used information technology to aid more than 100 corporations, government agencies, and foundations improve the quality and efficiency of their innovation efforts and, as a result, their overall performance. Through this process, which we call challenge-driven innovation, clients define and clear their business organization, technical, social, and policy issues and present them as challenges to a community of more than 250,000 solvers—scientists, engineers, and other experts who hail from 200 countries—on InnoCentive.com, our innovation market. Successful solvers have earned awards of $five,000 to $1 million.
Since our launch, more than than ten years agone, we have managed more than than ii,000 problems and solved more than half of them—a much college proportion than nigh organizations reach on their ain. Indeed, our success rates have improved dramatically over the years (34% in 2006, 39% in 2009, and 57% in 2011), which is a function of the increasing quality of the questions we pose and of our solver community. Interestingly, fifty-fifty unsolved issues have been tremendously valuable to many clients, allowing them to abolish ill-fated programs much earlier than they otherwise would have and then redeploy their resources.
In our early years, we focused on highly specific technical problems, but we have since expanded, taking on everything from basic R&D and product development to the health and prophylactic of astronauts to banking services in developing countries. Nosotros now know that the rigor with which a trouble is divers is the most important cistron in finding a suitable solution. But nosotros've seen that most organizations are not proficient at articulating their problems clearly and concisely. Many have considerable difficulty even identifying which problems are crucial to their missions and strategies.
In fact, many clients take realized while working with us that they may not be tackling the correct issues. Consider a company that engages InnoCentive to find a lubricant for its manufacturing machinery. This exchange ensues:
InnoCentive staffer: "Why do you need the lubricant?"
Customer's engineer: "Because we're now expecting our mechanism to practise things information technology was non designed to practise, and it needs a detail lubricant to operate."
InnoCentive staffer: "Why don't you replace the machinery?"
Customer's engineer: "Because no one makes equipment that exactly fits our needs."
This raises a deeper question: Does the company need the lubricant, or does it need a new way to make its product? It could be that rethinking the manufacturing process would give the business firm a new ground for competitive advantage. (Request questions until you get to the root cause of a problem draws from the famous Five Whys trouble-solving technique developed at Toyota and employed in Six Sigma.)
The instance is like many we've seen: Someone in the bowels of the organization is assigned to gear up a very specific, near-term problem. Simply because the firm doesn't employ a rigorous process for understanding the dimensions of the problem, leaders miss an opportunity to address underlying strategic problems. The situation is exacerbated by what Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertsen have identified as the fallacy of "The sooner the projection is started, the sooner it will be finished." (Run across "Six Myths of Production Development," HBR May 2012.) Organizational teams speed toward a solution, fearing that if they spend too much time defining the problem, their superiors will punish them for taking so long to get to the starting line.
Ironically, that arroyo is more likely to waste time and coin and reduce the odds of success than one that strives at the first to achieve an in-depth understanding of the problem and its importance to the firm. With this in mind, we adult a four-step process for defining and articulating problems, which nosotros accept honed with our clients. It consists of asking a serial of questions and using the answers to create a thorough problem statement. This process is important for two reasons. Commencement, information technology rallies the organisation around a shared understanding of the problem, why the firm should tackle it, and the level of resources it should receive. Firms that don't engage in this process often allocate besides few resources to solving major problems or too many to solving depression-priority or wrongly divers ones. It's useful to assign a value to the solution: An arrangement will exist more willing to devote considerable time and resources to an try that is shown to represent a $100 million market opportunity than to an initiative whose value is much less or is unclear. Second, the process helps an system cast the widest possible net for potential solutions, giving internal and external experts in disparate fields the data they need to fissure the problem.
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To illustrate how the process works, we'll describe an initiative to expand access to clean drinking water undertaken by the nonprofit EnterpriseWorks/VITA, a division of Relief International. EWV'due south mission is to foster economical growth and raise the standard of living in developing countries by expanding admission to technologies and helping entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses.
The organization chose Jon Naugle, its technical managing director, as the initiative's "problem champion." Individuals in this part should have a deep agreement of the field or domain and be capable program administrators. Because problem champions may also be charged with implementing solutions, a proven leader with the authority, responsibleness, and resource to meet the project through can be invaluable in this role, especially for a larger and more strategic undertaking. Naugle, an engineer with more than than 25 years of agricultural and rural-evolution experience in East and Westward Africa and the Caribbean area, fit the beak. He was supported by specialists who understood local market weather condition, available materials, and other disquisitional problems related to the delivery of drinking water.
Step one: Institute the Need for a Solution
The purpose of this step is to articulate the problem in the simplest terms possible: "We are looking for X in order to achieve Z equally measured by West." Such a statement, akin to an elevator pitch, is a call to arms that clarifies the importance of the outcome and helps secure resources to address it. This initial framing answers three questions:
What is the bones demand?
This is the essential problem, stated clearly and concisely. It is important at this phase to focus on the need that'southward at the heart of the problem instead of jumping to a solution. Defining the scope is too important. Conspicuously, looking for lubricant for a piece of machinery is different from seeking a radically new manufacturing process.
The basic demand EWV identified was access to make clean drinking water for the estimated 1.1 billion people in the world who lack it. This is a pressing issue even in areas that have plenty of rainfall, because the water is non finer captured, stored, and distributed.
What is the desired outcome?
Answering this question requires understanding the perspectives of customers and other beneficiaries. (The Five Whys approach can exist very helpful.) Again, avoid the temptation to favor a particular solution or approach. This question should be addressed qualitatively and quantitatively whenever possible. A loftier-level only specific goal, such as "improving fuel efficiency to 100 mpg by 2020," tin be helpful at this stage.
In answering this question, Naugle and his team realized that the result had to exist more than access to h2o; the access had to be convenient. Women and children in countries such every bit Uganda oftentimes must walk long distances to fetch water from valleys and then bear it uphill to their villages. The desired upshot EWV defined was to provide water for daily family needs without requiring enormous expenditures of time and energy.
Who stands to benefit and why?
Answering this question compels an organization to identify all potential customers and beneficiaries. Information technology is at this stage that you understand whether, say, y'all are solving a lubricant problem for the engineer or for the head of manufacturing—whose definitions of success may vary considerably.
If the problem you lot want to solve is industrywide, it'southward crucial to understand why the market has failed to address it.
Past pondering this question, EWV came to run across that the benefits would accrue to individuals and families every bit well as to regions and countries. Women would spend less fourth dimension walking to retrieve water, giving them more than time for working in the field or in outside employment that would bring their families needed income. Children would exist able to attend schoolhouse. And over the longer term, regions and countries would do good from the improved education and productivity of the population.
Footstep two: Justify the Need
The purpose of answering the questions in this step is to explain why your organization should try to solve the problem.
Is the effort aligned with our strategy?
In other words, will satisfying the need serve the organization'due south strategic goals? Information technology is not unusual for an organization to be working on problems that are no longer in sync with its strategy or mission. In that case, the attempt (and perhaps the whole initiative) should exist reconsidered.
In the case of EWV, merely improving admission to make clean drinking water wouldn't be enough; to fit the organization's mission, the solution should generate economic development and opportunities for local businesses. It needed to involve something that people would buy.
In addition, you lot should consider whether the problem fits with your firm's priorities. Since EWV's other projects included providing access to affordable products such as cookstoves and treadle pumps, the drinking h2o project was advisable.
What are the desired benefits for the company, and how volition nosotros measure them?
In for-turn a profit companies, the desired do good could be to reach a revenue target, attain a certain market share, or achieve specific cycle-time improvements. EWV hoped to further its goal of being a recognized leader in helping the earth's poor by transferring technology through the private sector. That benefit would exist measured by market impact: How many families are paying for the solution? How is information technology affecting their lives? Are sales and installation creating jobs? Given the potential benefits, EWV deemed the priority to be high.
How will nosotros ensure that a solution is implemented?
Assume that a solution is found. Someone in the organization must be responsible for carrying it out—whether that means installing a new manufacturing technology, launching a new business, or commercializing a product innovation. That person could be the problem champion, but he or she could too be the director of an existing division, a cross-functional team, or a new section.
At EWV, Jon Naugle was too put in charge of carrying out the solution. In improver to his technical background, Naugle had a rails tape of successfully implementing similar projects. For instance, he had served as EWV's country director in Niger, where he oversaw a component of a Globe Bank pilot project to promote small-scale-calibration private irrigation. His part of the project involved getting the individual sector to manufacture treadle pumps and manually drill wells.
It is of import at this stage to initiate a high-level conversation in the organization almost the resources a solution might require. This tin can seem premature—after all, you're still defining the problem, and the field of possible solutions could be very large—but it's really not besides early on to begin exploring what resources your organization is willing and able to devote to evaluating solutions and so implementing the best one. Even at the outset, yous may have an clue that implementing a solution will be much more expensive than others in the arrangement realize. In that case, it's important to communicate a rough gauge of the coin and people that will be required and to make sure that the organisation is willing to go along down this path. The result of such a discussion might be that some constraints on resourcing must be built into the problem statement. Early on in its drinking h2o project, EWV gear up a cap on how much it would devote to initial research and the testing of possible solutions.
Now that yous have laid out the need for a solution and its importance to the organization, you lot must ascertain the problem in item. This involves applying a rigorous method to ensure that you lot have captured all the data that someone—including people in fields far removed from your industry—might demand to solve the problem.
Step 3: Contextualize the Trouble
Examining past efforts to find a solution tin can save time and resources and generate highly innovative thinking. If the problem is industrywide, information technology's crucial to understand why the market place has failed to address information technology.
What approaches take nosotros tried?
The aim hither is to find solutions that might already exist in your arrangement and identify those that information technology has disproved. Past answering this question, you tin avoid reinventing the wheel or going downwards a dead end.
In previous efforts to expand access to make clean water, EWV had offered products and services ranging from manually drilled wells for irrigation to filters for household h2o treatment. Every bit with all its projects, EWV identified products that depression-income consumers could beget and, if possible, that local entrepreneurs could manufacture or service. As Naugle and his team revisited those efforts, they realized that both solutions worked only if a water source, such as surface water or a shallow aquifer, was close to the household. As a event, they decided to focus on rainwater—which falls everywhere in the globe to a greater or lesser extent—as a source that could reach many more people. More specifically, the squad turned its attention to the concept of rainwater harvesting. "Rainwater is delivered directly to the end user," Naugle says. "It's as close as you tin can get to a piped h2o system without having a piped water supply."
What have others tried?
EWV's investigation of previous attempts at rainwater harvesting involved reviewing enquiry on the topic, conducting five field studies, and surveying 20 countries to inquire what applied science was being used, what was and was not working, what prevented or encouraged the employ of various solutions, how much the solutions cost, and what role authorities played.
"I of the key things we learned from the surveys," Naugle says, "was that in one case y'all have a hard roof—which many people do—to apply every bit a collection surface, the most expensive thing is storage."
Hither was the problem that needed to be solved. EWV found that existing solutions for storing rainwater, such equally concrete tanks, were too expensive for low-income families in developing countries, so households were sharing storage tanks. But because no one took ownership of the communal facilities, they oftentimes fell into busted. Consequently, Naugle and his team homed in on the concept of a low-price household rainwater-storage device.
Their research into prior solutions surfaced what seemed initially like a promising approach: storing rainwater in a 525-gallon jar that was almost equally tall as an adult and three times as broad. In Thailand, they learned, 5 million of those jars had been deployed over 5 years. After further investigation, notwithstanding, they found that the jars were made of cement, which was available in Thailand at a low toll. More of import, the country'southward expert roads made information technology possible to manufacture the jars in one location and transport them in trucks around the land. That solution wouldn't work in areas that had neither cement nor high-quality roads. Indeed, through interviews with villagers in Uganda, EWV found that even empty polyethylene barrels big enough to hold only fifty gallons of h2o were difficult to carry along a path. It became clear that a viable storage solution had to be light enough to exist carried some distance in areas without roads.
What are the internal and external constraints on implementing a solution?
Now that y'all accept a meliorate idea of what you lot desire to reach, it's fourth dimension to revisit the issue of resources and organizational commitment: Do you accept the necessary support for soliciting and and then evaluating possible solutions? Are you sure that you can obtain the money and the people to implement the virtually promising i?
External constraints are but as important to evaluate: Are there issues concerning patents or intellectual-property rights? Are there laws and regulations to be considered? Answering these questions may require consultation with various stakeholders and experts.
Do you lot have the necessary support for soliciting and evaluating possible solutions? Practise you accept the coin and the people to implement the most promising one?
EWV's exploration of possible external constraints included examining government policies regarding rainwater storage. Naugle and his team found that the governments of Kenya, Tanzania, Republic of uganda, and Vietnam supported the idea, merely the strongest proponent was Republic of uganda's minister of water and the environment, Maria Mutagamba. Consequently, EWV decided to test the storage solution in Uganda.
Step four: Write the Trouble Statement
Now it'due south time to write a full description of the problem you lot're seeking to solve and the requirements the solution must run into. The problem statement, which captures all that the organization has learned through answering the questions in the previous steps, helps plant a consensus on what a viable solution would exist and what resources would be required to accomplish information technology.
A total, clear description besides helps people both inside and outside the system apace grasp the consequence. This is particularly important because solutions to circuitous bug in an manufacture or discipline oftentimes come up from experts in other fields (see "Getting Unusual Suspects to Solve R&D Puzzles," HBR May 2007). For example, the method for moving viscous oil from spills in Chill and subarctic waters from collection barges to disposal tanks came from a pharmacist in the cement industry, who responded to the Oil Spill Recovery Institute's clarification of the problem in terms that were precise simply not specific to the petroleum industry. Thus the found was able to solve in a matter of months a challenge that had stumped petroleum engineers for years. (To read the institute's full trouble statement, visit hbr.org/problem-statement1.)
Here are some questions that tin can help y'all develop a thorough trouble statement:
Is the problem actually many problems?
The aim hither is to drill downward to root causes. Circuitous, seemingly insoluble issues are much more approachable when broken into discrete elements.
For EWV, this meant making it articulate that the solution needed to be a storage production that private households could afford, that was light enough to be easily transported on poor-quality roads or paths, and that could be easily maintained.
What requirements must a solution meet?
EWV conducted extensive on-the-ground surveys with potential customers in Uganda to place the must-accept versus the nice-to-have elements of a solution. (See the sidebar "Elements of a Successful Solution.") It didn't matter to EWV whether the solution was a new device or an adaptation of an existing 1. Likewise, the solution didn't need to be i that could be mass-produced. That is, information technology could exist something that local small entrepreneurs could manufacture.
Experts in rainwater harvesting told Naugle and his team that their target price of $20 was unachievable, which meant that subsidies would exist required. But a subsidized product was against EWV'southward strategy and philosophy.
Which trouble solvers should nosotros appoint?
The dead end EWV striking in seeking a $20 solution from those experts led the organization to conclude that information technology needed to enlist as many experts exterior the field as possible. That is when EWV decided to appoint InnoCentive and its network of 250,000 solvers.
What information and linguistic communication should the problem statement include?
To engage the largest number of solvers from the widest variety of fields, a trouble argument must come across the twin goals of being extremely specific but not unnecessarily technical. It shouldn't contain industry or discipline jargon or presuppose noesis of a particular field. Information technology may (and probably should) include a summary of previous solution attempts and detailed requirements.
With those criteria in mind, Naugle and his team crafted a problem statement. (The post-obit is the abstract; for the total trouble statement, visit hbr.org/problem-statement2.) "EnterpriseWorks is seeking design ideas for a low-cost rainwater storage system that can be installed in households in developing countries. The solution is expected to facilitate access to make clean water at a household level, addressing a problem that affects millions of people worldwide who are living in impoverished communities or rural areas where admission to clean water is express. Domestic rainwater harvesting is a proven technology that can be a valuable option for accessing and storing water twelvemonth round. However, the high cost of available rainwater storage systems makes them well beyond the achieve of low-income families to install in their homes. A solution to this problem would not only provide user-friendly and affordable access to scarce water resource but would likewise allow families, specially the women and children who are usually tasked with h2o collection, to spend less time walking distances to collect water and more fourth dimension on activities that can bring in income and improve the quality of life."
To appoint the largest number of solvers from the widest variety of fields, a problem argument must meet the twin goals of being extremely specific but not unnecessarily technical.
What do solvers need to submit?
What data about the proposed solution does your organization need in gild to invest in it? For example, would a well-founded hypothetical approach be sufficient, or is a full-blown prototype needed? EWV decided that a solver had to submit a written explanation of the solution and detailed drawings.
What incentives do solvers demand?
The point of request this question is to ensure that the correct people are motivated to address the problem. For internal solvers, incentives tin can be written into task descriptions or offered as promotions and bonuses. For external solvers, the incentive might be a greenbacks award. EWV offered to pay $fifteen,000 to the solver who provided the best solution through the InnoCentive network.
How will solutions be evaluated and success measured?
Addressing this question forces a company to be explicit about how it will evaluate the solutions it receives. Clarity and transparency are crucial to arriving at viable solutions and to ensuring that the evaluation process is off-white and rigorous. In some cases a "we'll know it when we see information technology" arroyo is reasonable—for example, when a company is looking for a new branding strategy. Most of the time, yet, it is a sign that earlier steps in the process take not been approached with sufficient rigor.
EWV stipulated that information technology would evaluate solutions on their ability to meet the criteria of low cost, loftier storage chapters, low weight, and easy maintenance. It added that information technology would prefer designs that were modular (then that the unit of measurement would be easier to transport) and adjustable or salvageable or had multiple functions (so that owners could reuse the materials after the product's lifetime or sell them to others for various applications). The overarching goal was to keep costs low and to aid poor families justify the purchase.
The Winner
Ultimately, the solution to EWV's rainwater-storage problem came from someone outside the field: a German language inventor whose company specialized in the pattern of tourist submarines. The solution he proposed required no elaborate machinery; in fact, it had no pumps or moving parts. It was an established industrial technology that had not been applied to water storage: a plastic bag within a plastic pocketbook with a tube at the pinnacle. The outer bag (made of less-expensive, woven polypropylene) provided the structure's strength, while the inner bag (made of more-expensive, linear depression-density polyethylene) was impermeable and could hold 125 gallons of h2o. The ii-bag approach allowed the inner bag to be thinner, reducing the price of the product, while the outer pocketbook was strong enough to incorporate a ton and a one-half of h2o.
The construction folded into a package the size of a briefcase and weighed well-nigh eight pounds. In short, the solution was affordable, commercially viable, could be easily transported to remote areas, and could be sold and installed past local entrepreneurs. (Retailers make from $iv to $8 per unit, depending on the volume they purchase. Installers of the gutters, downspout, and base of operations earn nigh $half dozen.)
EWV adult an initial version and tested it in Uganda, where the organization asked end users such questions as What do you lot think of its weight? Does it meet your needs? Even mundane issues like colour came into play: The woven outer bags were white, which women pointed out would immediately look muddied. EWV modified the blueprint on the basis of this input: For example, it inverse the colour of the device to brown, expanded its size to 350 gallons (while keeping the target toll of no more $twenty per 125 gallons of h2o storage), altered its shape to get in more than stable, and replaced the original siphon with an outlet tap.
After 14 months of field testing, EWV rolled out the commercial product in Uganda in March 2011. Past the end of May 2012, 50 to 60 shops, village sales agents, and cooperatives were selling the production; more than than 80 entrepreneurs had been trained to install it; and ane,418 units had been deployed in eight districts in southwestern Uganda.
EWV deems this a success at this stage in the rollout. It hopes to make the units available in 10 countries—and have tens or hundreds of thousands of units installed—within 5 years. Ultimately, it believes, millions of units will exist in use for a multifariousness of applications, including household drinking water, irrigation, and construction. Interestingly, the main obstacle to getting people to buy the device has been skepticism that something that comes in such a small package (the size of a typical five-gallon jerrican) can hold the equivalent of 70 jerricans. Believing that the remedy is to show villagers the installed production, EWV is currently testing various promotion and marketing programs.Equally the EWV story illustrates, critically analyzing and clearly articulating a problem can yield highly innovative solutions. Organizations that apply these simple concepts and develop the skills and bailiwick to inquire better questions and define their problems with more rigor can create strategic advantage, unlock truly groundbreaking innovation, and drive better business performance. Asking better questions delivers better results.
A version of this commodity appeared in the September 2012 upshot of Harvard Concern Review.
Source: https://hbr.org/2012/09/are-you-solving-the-right-problem
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